


Sharp-Dressed Man

by x_los



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Birthday, Clothing, Gen, M/M, Season/Series 04, Shopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 00:45:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5476895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/x_los/pseuds/x_los
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Scorpio crew could use an excuse for a party, and Avon could use a new jacket and some good news.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sharp-Dressed Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aralias](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/gifts).



> beta: Elviaprose

Avon didn't much like turning thirty-seven. He had known, of course, that Vila would blab, and rub in Avon’s advancing years while he was at it. Only Avon’s having been in a prison cell on Earth at the time had prevented him from doing as much last December. Thus Avon had cut to the chase and made the announcement himself, and had explicitly banned cake and singing while he was at it.

Trust Dayna to get around that.

“Pie and chanting are effectually the same,” Avon remarked sullenly when the lot of them had finished solemnly intoning the Birthday Song (apparently finding themselves _hilarious_ ). He took an irritated bite of his banoffee pie. The fact that it was excellent did not, in his opinion, improve matters. Though it did raise serious questions as to how they’d managed to locate heavily-rationed bananas. Avon chalked another point up to Vila’s resourcefulness: there was undoubtedly a good spiv bloodline somewhere in Vila’s jumble-sale of a family history (though obviously it was too good a one to be legitimately traceable).

Avon had assumed the lot of miscreants he managed would melt back into their own corners of Xenon base after they’d watched him consume their sarcastic offering (for breakfast, as well—well, Avon did appreciate decadence, when he got a chance to do so). But when he suggested as much, Tarrant shook his head, favoring Avon with an unholy grin.

“Oh _no_ , Avon,” Dayna tsked.

“You see we’ve decided to take it as a challenge,” Tarrant added.

“Every year you mope about like a misery,” Vila put in. “More of one than usual. Did that back on the Liberator as well, when you were still a comparative spring chicken.”

“Well not _this_ year,” Tarrant said brightly. “ _This_ year, we’re going to do it.”

“Going to do what?” Avon asked, sensibly wary, wondering if he was going to be marooned somewhere, with only the remainder of his banoffee pie to sustain him until a passing cargo freighter picked him up (he _hoped_ —he’d hate to for his starved corpse to be found by Servalan, curled pathetically around an empty pie tin: it lacked something in the way of dignitas).

“Going to enjoy ourselves properly, he means,” Soolin said crisply, taking the pie off Avon and putting it back in the stasis unit. “Your birthday is as good an excuse for a party as any, and we could all use one. Even you, Avon.”

Avon smiled thinly. “I don’t much go in for parties. I thought you might have noticed by now.”

Dayna snorted, picturing Avon attempting to go clubbing. Hissing ‘excuse me, you’ve _jostled_ me’ at a raver, realizing he’d never be heard over that bass line, rolling his eyes, sulking off to the bar, trying and failing to get an overly-complicated cocktail, and finally ending up in a corner, pouting into a vodka cranberry and snarling at anyone who tried to proposition him (or worse, smiling terrifyingly at them in an effort to be encouraging and scaring them sober).

Tarrant grinned back at Avon. “Not that kind of party.”

***

“Out of my way!” Avon snarled at a baffled shop assistant. “You,” he pointed at the shop manager, “will attend me.”

Vila and Tarrant scuttled in behind him, Tarrant wringing his hands together elaborately. “I’m terribly sorry.” He gave a feeble grin. “Mister Chevron is a little—abrupt.” Tarrant laughed, nervously. “What can you expect from someone who spends all his time supervising his mining interests? He’s somewhat out of practice, with company, please forgive us—”

Vila came around the shop manager’s other side, throwing his arm around the man. “Lance, don’t patronize the gentleman, he knows who Mister Chevron is. Don’t you? _Sure_ he does,” Vila continued without pausing to allow the shop manager to confirm or deny this. “He knows his business. Imagine a sharp guy like this not knowing the biggest crystals baron in the system—well,” Vila coughed, lowering his voice, “at least—that’s his legitimate line of business, if you take my meaning. And that’s plenty of weight to throw around in and of itself.”

“If you’d like to see our line of credit?” Tarrant stammered, handing over a datapad. A few clicks revealed an astronomical balance.

The shop manager swallowed. “This—all looks perfectly in order.”

“‘Course it does,” Vila clapped the manager on the back.

“I am w _aiting_ ,” Avon snarled from the centre of an alcove lined in mirrors. “What sort of service does this establishment provide?” He slid out of the elaborate neck-to-toe dark fur coat he was wearing over simple black slacks and a turtleneck, letting the opulent garment drop carelessly to the floor and pool there. He smiled sharply at himself in the mirror, canting his head to obtain a better angle.

“Apologies, sir,” the manager hurried over. “What was sir interested in today?”

“I require an entirely new wardrobe,” Avon said, a little whimsically. “I’m bored of _everything_ I own.”

“Would sir like to see the new Winter collections?”

“For a start,” Avon agreed. He snapped his fingers, and at this and a nod from his manager, a shop assistant scurried off. “But why stop there?” Avon purred. “I am not particularly interested in what is popular this season. Trends are rather ephemeral, after all.” Avon allowed himself a small smile. “Your full luxury range, I think, will better suit me. The classics. Let’s not be cheap.”

“Oh _no_ sir!” Tarrant shook his head frantically.

“What are sir’s general preferences?” The manager tapped at his pad and started to build a customer profile, beginning to get seriously to work.

“ _Well_ ,” Avon drawled, taking a cup of _very_ nice espresso from the returned assistant and casting a casual eye over the boxes of gloves, in a rainbow of colors, which the assistant had also brought over, “I’m partial to leather, and black, but I am quite willing to explore my options. I prefer things that are hard-wearing, where possible.” He grinned.

“Easy to get blood off of—that sort of thing,” Vila put in.

“Professional hazards being what they are,” Avon agreed. “Lance, Jenkins,” he waved his hand, “pick out some fresh attire for yourselves, while we’re here. I’m so _tired_ of _looking_ at you in the same old things. So tired I’m literally willing to pay not to.”

“Of course, sir, thank you, sir.”

Tarrant, worrying his lip, muttered “oh I do hope it goes better this time” to the assistant who’d come to help him change into a soft russet jacket that suited his complexion.

“This time?” she asked, sotto voice.

Tarrant cast a furtive look over at ‘Chevron’ and affected a full-bodied shiver. “I just _pray_ he can be placated today.”

The assistant looked petrified. Tarrant couldn’t resist. He leaned in. “The animal onesies he made the last boutique staff wear, after he bought out their planet,” he whispered confidentially, “were _synthetic_.”

With a quick, stifled noise of alarm, the assistant went to fetch Tarrant some shirts to go with the jacket, surreptitiously whispering this bit of gossip to her manger when she met him in the back room.

“Oh my god,” he grabbed her shoulders for support, “Was that on Teal XIV? I think I _heard_ about that! Be vigilant, Stefani! Comp them accessories if you have to!” His exclamation points were clearly audible and demonstrative of deep unease, born of his intense desire to avoid such a fate himself. He had not ascended to the dizzying heights of Luxury Marketing to fall now.

Vila, meanwhile, drifted over from his station while his own assistant was absent to see how Avon was getting on.

“Hm,” Vila surveyed the scene. “Do you have any,” he waved a hand, “ _blacker_ black? Mister Chevron likes a sort of _pitch_ shade. If you could stare into the cold, dead heart of a fairy tale villain, squeeze it dry, and use whatever juices dripped from it to dye fabric—that’s the sort of thing we're going for.”

“We can do that!” the manager said, desperate to please.

As a highly-respected computer technician on Earth, Avon had made a fair amount of money. Yet he walked out of the shop that day carrying (well, Vila and Tarrant were doing the _physical_ carrying, but nevertheless, the point stood) clothing worth, in total, more than his entire year’s salary had amounted to. And because he was in such a good mood that, for once, the idea of pleasant things happening to him did not seem flatly ridiculous, Avon allowed himself to purchase a waist-length green cape he’d seen in the shop’s window. In point of fact, this cape was one of the reasons he’d chosen to go into this particular shop in the first place. The cape was well made and attractive, though it wasn’t Avon’s sort of thing at all. It would, however, definitely flatter someone he hoped to see again.

“Admit it, Avon,” Dayna said in the Scorpio as they started their rather long journey home, “that’s got to be about your best birthday ever. You got to intimidate shop assistants and you made out like a bandit.”

Dayna was covered in jewels and a diaphanous silk robe—she and Soolin had presented themselves as an heiress and her new concubine (both of whom needed nuptial clothing) at a whole series of high end boutiques, and had been feted accordingly. Currently they matched, except Dayna’s robe was a warm saffron and crimson affair, while Soolin’s was deep blue

Avon didn’t answer, though he did grin with immense satisfaction.

Sometimes Avon felt like he was hurtling through the world and his own life, at the mercy of a cruel, chaotic universe that did not respond either to his best-laid plans or to his best intentions. And doing so with diminishing returns. He missed people: the dead and the absent. He didn’t parade his attachments, but he did form them, at times against his will. He wondered if Jenna was safe. Well.

Once, on her own birthday, he’d given her a small present. He’d tossed it at her as though it were an afterthought, though he’d chosen the blue and white inlaid box rather carefully when Vila mentioned that she’d asked Blake to make a rest stop, so that they could at least mark the occasion at a pub (Blake had said yes, of course—it had been a good night). In return, she’d given Avon a quick hug before he could quite protest. Jenna hadn’t been surprised, per se. She’d caught the box. She’d slipped back before he’d felt obliged to offer a token complaint and shake off the embrace. Jenna had understood him, and he did—miss her, at times. He wondered if _Blake_ was safe, and well—but it didn’t do to think about that. He missed Blake—often. Far too often.

Mostly he thought the universe was an awful, hateful mess, but occasionally he thought that he didn’t quite deserve the companions he’d found in it. Clever and wry and unexpectedly caring, in the face of how sensible it would be not to give a damn. It wasn’t Avon’s best birthday _ever_ , perhaps. After all, he was still a fugitive living from scrape to scrape, and people who should have been present weren’t. But it was certainly among them.

And it didn’t hurt that they’d used Commissioner Sleer’s line of credit. They’d presented the merchants with very valid account information—it just happened not to be _their_ account information. Sleer could hardly take reprisals for two reasons. First, at the moment, she was going about incognito. Second, and more importantly, if _anyone_ wanted to avoid being blacklisted by the fashion world for running up debt and then refusing to claim and pay it, it was Sleer, née Servalan. She would figure out exactly who had charged this colossal bill in her name, and everyone on the Scorpio thought that just knowing how annoyed she’d be was frankly as good as owning amazing new clothes. They couldn’t wait to smugly run into her while wearing them.

***

“Orac!” Avon crooned delightedly, patting the box. When they’d arrived back at Xenon base, Soolin (rather to Avon’s surprise) had been the one to suggest drinks to go with the nice take-away in stasis. Normally he would have dodged the invitation, but it _had_ been his birthday. One thing had led inexorably to another, as often seemed to happen to them, and thus everyone on the base was fairly soused.

Avon had not been searching for Orac, but rather for a nicer bottle of alcohol, which he knew to be somewhere in his room (Vila had suggested he bring it—Avon had known Vila couldn’t resist breaking into everyone’s personal quarters for a look around, and was really just impressed that Vila hadn’t already made off with the stuff). Happening on Orac first, Avon discovered his bonhomie extended even to the computer.

“‘Happy birthday,’ I suppose,” Orac said in a long-suffering tone (also known as: his only tone). “I have been instructed to give you some form of present. I have located Blake. Your own search queries were woefully misdirected: I could have told you he was nowhere near the Jevron sector, had you asked me properly. Will that suffice?”

Avon blinked at the box. “That isn’t funny.”

“It was not intended to be humorous! However! When Vila imparted his instruction to offer you a suitable gift, he also explained the concept of birthday greetings. Thus, I have contacted Blake in your absence and explained the situation, including your recent exploits. He wished me to convey to you that he was sorry to miss the day itself, but that he extended you many happy returns. Further, he inquired as to our location, and said, if convenient, that he would arrive here in a matter of days—”

“I take it back,” Avon said to no one in particular. He _loved_ turning thirty-seven. He was also prepared, now, to push this birthday to the summit of his personal list.

“What?” Orac snapped. “What do you ‘take back’? You must learn to be specific in your instructions!”

“Call him back, Orac.”

If Avon had been a little more sober, he would have thought the better of speaking to Blake while indisposed, and would have opted to wait. But at present, the possible problems involved in talking to Blake _right now_ did not occur to him.

Orac sighed irritably, apparently feeling it had done enough for Avon for one day, birthday or no. “If you wish. Please attend to the monitor.”

And suddenly, on the other side of the monitor, there he was.

“Blake,” Avon breathed, shocked that it had actually _worked_.

“Avon!” Blake responded with a delighted laugh, seeming surprised himself. “It’s been a while. I’ve missed a birthday, in there—two, if we count today.”

Avon shook his head, frowning, as though this piece of imprecision bothered him. “You are obviously not missing it. Here we are, talking. I just wanted to say it would be fine. If you came and got me. I mean…” Avon swallowed. “I will allow you to. That is perfectly acceptable. To me.”

“Avon,” Blake said slowly, with a trace of amusement, “have you been drinking?”

“Perhaps a little,” Avon said airily. “It’s good to hear your voice again.” He then blinked. Perhaps he—shouldn’t have said that part. Out loud. Blake didn’t look at all offended, however.

Blake _did_ look a little chuffed. “Likewise,” he said giving the word some emphasis. “You look good,” he volunteered, tone almost circumspect.

Avon grinned broadly. “I have new clothes, actually!” He gestured to his outfit, then leaned in to the monitor, conspiratorially. “We defrauded Servalan just today, so she’ll be getting the bill for this shortly—”

Blake laughed outright, and Avon found it very encouraging.

“Do you like it?” Avon asked, leaning back so Blake could get a good look.

Blake regarded him intently. “Yes.”

Avon beamed at him. “It is good, isn’t it? We _have_ done some serious work as well,” Avon said, earnest in his intoxication, because it was important to him that Blake knew that he’d been trying his damndest to do something intelligent and practical in response to their situation, something that mattered. The sort of thing that would make Blake proud of him, even if everything did always seem to go wrong.

“Yes, I’ve heard,” Blake said, that laden tone even more encouraging.

“I got you a sort of—jacket, as well,” Avon said (‘jacket’ sounded slightly more respectable than ‘cape’—less like he went about buying Blake Blake-costumes). “In case I saw you again. I saw it and I thought, Blake would like that.” And somehow _that_ sounded especially—well, like what it was.

Blake blinked at him, but smiled. It was a particularly good one, warming up his whole face and crinkling his eyes. “You’re very drunk, aren't you, Avon? …and now you’re pouting because I called you drunk. Listen, Avon, whatever you want, the answer’s yes. All right? Yes, _absolutely_ yes. Try not to feel awful about this in the morning. I’ll be with you in two days, if Jenna’s quick, and we can talk everything through properly then. I should probably let you go now. I suspect you’re going to appreciate that later.”

Avon smiled himself, softer this time. “All right.” He didn’t know why Blake expected he’d feel awful, given that Blake was actually coming, was practically here already. Just two days.

“Happy birthday, Avon,” Blake said, and Avon politely said thank you and cut the connection. He then frowned, wishing he’d thought to ask Blake more questions. He wanted to hear about everything that had happened in his absence, but perhaps it’d be better in person, anyway.

Avon grabbed the bottle he’d come in search of and Orac, who could explain the situation to the drunken assembly better than he could at the moment, and with greater credibility. He let the door of his room swish closed behind him.

In the hall, Avon peered left. He peered right. No one in either direction. Safe, at present.

“Happy birthday,” he warbled tentatively, under his breath, “to _me_ —”


End file.
